SELECTED NEWS OF THE DAY

Great March of Return in Eastern Gaza Strip: 155 civilians injured, including 60 children, 2 women, and 7 paramedics.

West Bank: 4 civilians injured. During 82 incursions into the West Bank: 79 civilians, including 9 children and a woman, arrested.

Notices to confiscate 1186 dunums in eastern Qalqiliyah for settlement expansion; a house and restaurant demolished in Bethlehem, and a Palestinian forced to self-demolish his house in occupied East Jerusalem.

China to donate $15 m for several projects in Palestine

WAFAAugust 29, 2019
Guo Wei, ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the State of Palestine, and Amjad Ghanem, Secretary General of Palestinian Council of Ministers, signed yesterday an agreement under which China will be donating $15 million to implement over a dozen projects in different fields in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ These fields include infrastructure, youth and entrepreneurship, women and energy, but on top of which is a project on donating $500,000 to buy school bags for Palestinian children.
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ “We named it the School Bag Project,” Ghanem said, adding that about 15,000 to 20,000 new school bags bought with the Chinese donation will be offered next week to Palestinian school children in remote and poor areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the start of the new school year. More . . . .

Hamas seeks ties with other factions, Palestinian families

Palestine PulseEntsar Abu Jahal
August 28, 2019
The two main Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip are growing closer, and they want the world to know. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader in Gaza, revealed Aug. 14 a recent high-level meeting between Hamas and Islamic Jihad political and military leaders.
˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Sinwar said the six-hour meeting focused on details of the factions’ resistance project and included preparations to deter Israeli aggression and discussions about developing a national action plan, the marches of return and lifting the blockade by Israel. More . . . .

Opinion: The plight of the Palestinian people is to face racism, anywhere and everywhere

The Middle East MonitorAsa Winstanley
August 30, 2019
Seventeen-year-old Ismail Ajjawi must have been giddy with excitement when he, a Palestinian refugee living in southern Lebanon, won a major scholarship to Harvard University. . . . Flying into Boston’s Logan International Airport, Ajjawi was detained, interrogated for hours on his political and religious beliefs, screamed at and eventually deported. . . . After invading his privacy by forcing their way into his social media account, border officials determined that some of his online “friends” had posted “political” views which were critical of the US. This apparently made him “inadmissible” to the country, despite having been already granted a visa. . . .˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ Such unjust restrictions on movement, migration, travel, study and employment frequently target many different peoples from the global south. . . . the Palestinians are an almost unique example of a particularly vulnerable, stateless population, which is subject to frequent and arbitrary global movement restrictions. . . .˙ ˙ ˙ ˙ If anything, though, Israel is a product of western imperialism, racism and anti-Semitism; the anti-Semitic view that Jewish people do not “really” belong in Europe is shared by the Zionist movement, as well as by fascists. More . . . .

POEM OF THE DAY

what is the first thing that comes to mind
when you hear of refugees?
what terror trove them out of their homes?
are they getting help?
what is being done for their safe return?

are Palestinians any different from any other refugees?
is it not their simple right
to return to the land they were driven from?

why are they being asked to settle
for money?
who designated the Palestinians as the chosen people
to carry the cross for a guilt-ridden West?
why do politicians tell them
too much time has passed
when their grievance
is with people who went back after 2000 years?

between continued warfare and annihilation
coexistence beckons
as the only
honorable
demographic.

time for peace
now.

From BEFORE THERE IS NOWHERE TO STAND: PALESTINE ISRAEL POETS RESPOND TO THE STRUGGLE. Ed. Joan Dobbie and Grace Beeler. Sandpoint ID: Lost Horse Press, 2012.Available from B&N.

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SELECTED NEWS OF THE DAY. . .|TENSIONS EASE IN GAZA, ALLOWING MONEY AND FUEL TO ROLL IN
For months, Israel has tried to quell Gaza’s border protests through force. Now Israel is taking a different approach, easing a blockade and allowing millions of dollars in aid to flow into Gaza, the impoverished enclave controlled by Hamas, its bitter foe. ___The aim of the change, in a plan mediated by Egypt and with money supplied by Qatar, is to provide much-needed relief for Gaza, restore calm on the Israeli side of the border and avert another war. ___The clashes along Gaza’s border have caused misery on both sides: At least 170 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands of acres of Israeli farmland have been torched. ___But the change in Israel’s approach presents risks for leaders on both sides, pressures that could doom even this limited warming of relations. More . . .| QATARI CASH CAN’T STOP ISRAELI BULLETS
One Palestinian was killed during the 33rd consecutive Friday of mass protests along the eastern perimeter of the occupied Gaza Strip. [. . . .] Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza . . . said his faction was reaching “understandings” with Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations to lift the blockade. [. . . .] Qatari officials brought in $15 million in cash to Gaza in recent days, disbursing it to some 30,000 civil servants hired by Hamas since 2007 whose salaries hadn’t been paid in months. The money will also be used to create 10,000 jobs in Gaza, where unemployment is currently nearly 55 percent – believed to be among the highest rates in the world, if not the highest. ___The Qatari funding is the first installation of a total of $90 million pledged by the Gulf country for Gaza to be paid over the following six months. More . . .|ISRAEL’S NEW DECISION TO BAN DEALING WITH LARGE CASH A NEW CHALLENGE TO THE PALESTINIAN ECONOMY In few weeks, the Israeli decision barring dealing with large cash in commercial transactions that exceed 11,000 Israeli shekels ($3000) will get into force, which may have big and immediate repercussions on the Palestinian economy. [. . . .] The Israeli decision prohibits dealing with cash in commercial transactions. . . replacing it with electronic means of payment . . . [. . . .] With the weakness of modern means of payment in Palestine, in light of large daily transactions in Israeli currency, there is fear of large inflow of shekel into the Palestinian market, which already suffers from a large surplus of this currency. More. . .| PALESTINIANS CONDEMN HOLLYWOOD STARS’ FUNDRAISER FOR ISRAELI ARMY
Palestinian people condemned several Hollywood starts who celebrated and raised millions of dollars to fund the Israeli army last week. ___The Middle East Eye London-based news outlet reported that the gala was organized on November 1st, by Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, adding that Hollywood stars such as Ashton Kutcher, Gerard Butler and Andy Garcia attended and celebrated the event. [. . . .] The event was met with condemnation in Palestine and by Palestinians on social media. ___One of the organizers of “The Great March of Return,“ which takes place every Friday at the eastern borders of the besieged Gaza Strip, Ahmad Abu Artema, told Middle East Eye that “The Israeli army will use these funds to buy more bullets and more bombs, only to kill more civilians.” More . . .
. . . . RelatedISRAELI FORCES INJURE AT LEAST 37 PALESTINIANS AT EASTERN GAZA BORDERS. . . . RelatedPALESTINIAN SUCCUMBS TO WOUNDS SUSTAINED IN GAZA PROTESTS
. . . . RelatedFOUR PALESTINIANS INJURED IN KAFR QADDUM MARCH

COMMENTARY AND OPINION. . . .| JERUSALEM CHURCHES ACHIEVE NEW VICTORY AGAINST ISRAEL GOVERNMENT (VIDEO)
The Council of Jerusalem Churches has achieved a new victory against the Israeli government, with an “unprecedented number of US churches condemn[ing] Israeli attempts to confiscate church lands,” a Council statement – a copy of which was sent to MEMO – said on Friday. ___The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, who heads the Council of Jerusalem Churches has toured the USA and EU countries to lobby against an Israeli law – known as the “Properties Bill” – which was recently advanced in the Knesset to target church property. More . . .|‘LIVING STONES’ OF AL AHLI ARAB HOSPITAL BUILD A MINISTRY OF HEALING, WITNESS IN GAZABy Mary Frances Schjonberg, Posted Mar. 27, 2018(Note: reposted to show the people of the US continue relationship with Gazans despite the actions of the US government)Healing comes in many forms, and Al Ahli Arab Hospital’s medical ministry . . . provide[s] the people of the Gaza Strip with an example of the love of Christ in action. ___That example is set in an area whose Christian population is dwindling. Suhaila Tarazi, the hospital’s director general, estimates there are no more than 900 Christians among Gaza’s 2 million residents. Ten years ago, the number of Christians stood at 3,000 and the total population was around 1.5 million. ___Tarazi told Bishop Michael Curry,Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, United States. . . that the remaining Christians are “the living stones” of Gaza, and so too are institutions like Al Ahli Arab Hospital, which is one of more than 30 social service ministries of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem. More . . .

POEM FOR THE DAY. . . .

“TO A JEWISH FRIEND,” BY FOUZI EL-ASMAR
Don’t ask me
the impossible
Don’t’ ask me
to hunt stars,
walk to the sun.
Don’t ask me
to empty the sea
to erase the day’s light
I am nothing but a man.

Don’t ask me
to abandon my eyes, my love,
the memory of my childhood.

I was raised
under an olive tree,
I ate the figs
of my orchard
drank wine from
the sloping vineyards
Tasted Cactus fruit
in the valleys
more, more.

The nightingale has sung
in my ears
The free winds of fields and cities
always tickled me
My friend
You cannot ask me
to leave my own country. (March 1971)